Creative destruction: the commodification of industrial heritage in Nanfeng Kiln District, China

ABSTRACT

The potential value of industrial heritage for developing tourism has attracted increasing attention worldwide. In China, there is an emerging trend of the reuse of industrial heritage sites to develop industrial heritage tourism as ‘creative parks’. Studies have found that over-commodification is occurring while protection of the historical and cultural value of contemporary industrial heritage is neglected during the process of redevelopment. However, detailed research on the processes and mechanisms of over-commodification is limited. A qualitative approach is adopted to examine the development process of a typical industrial heritage tourism destination, Nanfeng Kiln District in Foshan, China. Through application of a creative destruction model, the relationships and interplay of a variety of actors in this process are uncovered. Mitchell's model of creative destruction is applied to explain the transformative process of tourist destinations whose development has occurred based on the commodification of heritage. It is found that the creative destruction model should be modified to include the roles of urban land policy and various governments, to reflect the politico-economic characteristics of China.

摘要

在全球范围内, 工业遗产因其具有潜在的旅游开发价值吸引了越来越多的关注。在中国也出现了一种新趋势, 即通过将工业遗产改造为创意园来发展工业遗产旅游。有学者指出, 在旅游开发的过程中, 工业遗产的历史和文化价值没有得到有效保护, 并且出现过度商品化的现象。然而, 过度商品化是如何产生的、其过程和机制又是怎样的却少有学者关注。本文采用定性研究方法, 以一个典型的工业遗产旅游目的地——佛山南风古灶片区为案例地, 深入研究工业遗产旅游地的发展过程, 并借助创造性破坏模型来揭示旅游发展过程中不同角色间的相互作用。Mitchell的创造性破坏模型是一个用于解释遗产旅游地商品化演化过程的阶段式模型。研究发现:创造性破坏模型需要进一步的修正以反映中国的政治经济特点, 要考虑城市土地政策和不同层级的政府在工业遗产保护和旅游发展过程中起到的作用。

KEYWORDS:

• Creative destruction
• industrial heritage tourism
• commodification
• ceramics
• Foshan
• China

关键词:

• 创造性破坏
• 工业遗产旅游
• 商品化
• 陶瓷
• 佛山
• 中国

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the two reviewers for their guidance in the revisions to the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation (to Xu Honggang) [grant number #41371156].

Notes on contributors

Xueke (Stephanie) Yang

Xueke (Stephanie) Yang is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. Her research interests focus on heritage tourism, rural tourism, and arts and cultural spaces.

HongGang Xu

HongGang Xu is a professor in School of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-sen University, China. Her research interests include sustainable tourism, tourism geographies, and mobilities.

Geoffrey Wall

Geoffrey Wall is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography and Environment, University of Waterloo. His research focuses on tourism, recreation, and the socio-economic implications of climate change.